Hold up your heads, America!

I watched a small part of the Olympic opening ceremonies (Athens 2004) a couple of days ago where the athletes were walking in accompanied by their nations' flags. The announcers made sure to speak proudly about Afghanistan not only participating, but having two women athletes this year for the first time ever. They have a total of five athletes participating. This is a wonderful thing! It shows that women in Afghanistan are not nearly as downtrodden as they always have been. They also proudly mentioned that for the first time, Iraq has athletes participating in the Olympic games as a FREE nation! That is something to be proud about, that Iraqi athletes are now free to join in with the most of the rest of the world.

I couldn't help smiling about the Afghani athletes waving their flags energetically with huge smiles on their faces, just so glad to be there to represent their country. Unfortunately, my cable messed up and I missed seeing the Iraqi athletes. But I did get to see the American athletes walk by.

They were surprisingly reserved, not much excitement showing, which is atypical of American athletes. And I was wondering what was up with their outfits. They were wearing beret-type hats, backwards it seemed, with vests that appeared to be imitating gangs! What was that?? Then the announcer commented that the Olympic committee had asked them to hold back and stay restrained, which is why there was no American flag waving among the athletes.

Asked to not wave our flag?? Why was every other country not asked to do the same?

There is a huge problem here when the countries we helped to free are being toted as the pride of the Olympics this year and we, as their rescuers, are told to hang our heads. Are they kidding? Why were our athletes put in that position? They have worked as hard as everyone else out there and deserve to be as excited and honored as everyone else. What kind of Olympic spirit is that?

Do they not see the hypocrisy of being glad Iraq is finally there this year but being ashamed that we are? Iraq wouldn't be there if we hadn't been there for Iraq.

In the same strain, why should any of us as Americans hang our heads when freedom this year is burning so much brighter than it was a year ago? How often have we helped it to burn brighter? More often than any other country can boast.

Hold up your head, America. Don't let the real bullies in form of propagandists and those who can't see the bigger, better picture put you down.

"One nation, under God, indivisible."
Let's stay that way.